1 ASTRON is part of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)

Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy

The LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR)

Richard Fallows

2

Array Location

- Centred in Netherlands - International stations:

- France (1) - Germany (5) - Sweden (1) - UK (1) - Poland (3) - Ireland (1)

3

Array Location

- Centred in Netherlands - International stations:

- France (1) - Germany (5) - Sweden (1) - UK (1) - Poland (3) - Ireland (1)

4

Array Location

- Dutch stations: - Core centred on Exloo - Remote stations

5

Array Location

- Core stations: - Central area of stations

with area diameter of 2km. - “Superterp” of six stations

in centre.

6

Array Location

- Superterp

7

Data Path

8

Antennas

Each site contains two arrays of antennas.

Low-band (LBA):10-90MHz

High-band (HBA):110-250MHz

9

Low-Band Antennas

- Wire dual dipoles set at 45 degrees - Held in place by rubber tensioners- “Random” distribution within station to reduce sidelobes

- Usable band:10-90 MHz- Below 30MHz, ionospheric contamination- Above 88MHz, FM waveband

10

High-Band Antennas

- Metal plate “bow-tie” dual dipoles, encased in polystyrene- Grouped into “tiles” of 4x4 antennas, with tile spacing of 1.25m (1 wavelength at 240MHz).

- Usable band:110-250 MHz

- Three filters: 110-190MHz, 170-230MHz, 210-250MHz

11

Clock and Filter Selections

12

Frequency and Time Resolutions

Full bandwidth of the digitised signal (100MHz or 80MHz depending on the clock) split into 512 “subbands”.

Up to 244 subbands, covering 48/38MHz in total, can be returned to Central Processing (CEP) due to data rate limitations.

“8-bit” mode will increase this in the future.

Frequency resolution is 0.1953125/0.156250 MHz.

Time resolution at this stage is 5.12 μs.

In CEP, subbands can be split into channels (16 to >256) with a corresponding decrease in time resolution.

13

Beam Definitions

Dipole/Tile beam:- Sensitive to whole sky >30 degrees elevation (LBA) or ~30 degrees wide (HBA tile)

Station beam:- 2 to >8 degrees wide, depending on station size and frequency.

“Tied-array beam”:- Form array of stations.- <1 degree wide, depending on frequency and number of stations used.

14

Final Data Products

Data returned can be combined to return raw visibilities for imaging:

Imaging data “pipeline” will return sky images, as specified by the user.

Or they can be returned as “beam-formed” data:

Equivalent to single-dish measurement.

Time/Frequency data returned for combined array and/or individual stations.

Or both simultaneously...

15

OK, Now for the Science

My particular interest is observing the solar wind using observations of Interplanetary Scintillation:

The scintillation of compact radio sources due to density variations in the solar wind.

Analogous to the twinkling of stars due to our atmosphere.

Effectively, observe the same radio sources that astronomers observe, but only care about the noise!

16

Interplanetary Scintillation

Scintillation seen as stripes in a dynamic spectrum. It is stronger at lower frequencies for a radio source at a given distance from the Sun.

17

Some Pitfalls...

Sum of all stations SE607 UK608

These data are a result of the Sun in a distant station beam sidelobe...This can be a BIG problem...

18

Comparison with Full-Resolution Nançay Decametric Array

LOFAR IPS data averaged down to match resolution of Nancay (1.24s).

19

Another Example

LOFAR IPS data averaged down to match resolution of Nancay (1.24s).

A lot of radio activity seen by both instruments.

20

So need to see what the sidelobes might look like...

21

The Wide-Field HBA Beam:A First Look

Effectively mapping tile beam

Effectively mapping station beam

22

No Problems Observing the Sun!Even through a thunderstorm...

23

A Final Puzzle

Overnight observation of Cygnus A appears to show structures which could be ionospheric.

What are they??

24

Summary

LOFAR is a powerful and very flexible new radio telescope.

Capable of observing many things in greater detail than before.

The ionosphere is a big issue for radio astronomers:

Is there anything interesting in the ionosphere at middle latitudes?